Welcome to LB
492!

Evolutionary
Medicine

Evolutionary Medicine is the
application of the principles of evolutionary biology to
aid in our understanding of human diseases and to solve
problems in medicine and public health. An
evolutionary approach provides a unique and useful
perspective on a broad range of topics in medicine,
including nutrition and metabolism, reproduction,
infectious disease, stress, and mental illness. We
will use the book by Randy Nesse and George C. Williams,
Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian
Medicine, as the starting point of our work. We
will then follow up with an exploration of topics ranging
from how evolutionary principles are being used to
provide radically new insights in cancer biology, to the
molecular evolutionary analysis of genes from humans
across the globe to assist in the search for genes
associated with various human diseases. As is
typical for an LBC senior seminar, you will develop,
produce and present an original project as a capstone to
your senior seminar experience. You have wide latitude in
choosing a research project, but you must address some
aspect of Evolutionary Medicine.
(4 hours credit.)